


In the forest, a chaffinch

by tahanrien



Category: Fantaghirò | The Cave of the Golden Rose (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahanrien/pseuds/tahanrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from the first movie: About Fantaghirò's loneliness before and during her training with the White Knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the forest, a chaffinch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanoyee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanoyee/gifts).



> I want to thank infinimato, who was a really, really awesome beta reader - thank you so much, you made the story so much better!

Her arms felt like tree branches, her muscles were sore and unmoving, as if they had become weapons themselves. Not a sword’s metal, at least yet, but tree branches, hard and scaly and still easily snappable. In her dreams she lost her arms - they just dropped off; as dreams went - and they followed her, haunting her with their whimpers. They sighed with every step, crying.

They liked pretty things, they liked stitching, and putting in pins high up her dark hair. They walked on the fingers, the stumps where the shoulder normally began lifted up, but they couldn’t keep their balance and kept falling over.

They were an eerie sight.

They also looked like her sisters.

Carolina, falling down, down, down, as if she wasn’t able to go forward, only tumble and tremble and weep. And Caterina, more carefully picking her way over the grounds of the forest, her fingers twitching in hidden annoyance.

“What did you do? Come back, Fantaghirò,” they pleaded. “What did you do to us? Put us back, come back, and go back. To the castle.”

Fantaghirò only fled.

As dreams were, her arms caught up with her. They grabbed onto her shoulders and tore her around, their grips hard and burning, fingers ripping at her hair—

“Why do you run, Fantaghirò?” they wept. “Come back— It’s so cold, the trees are so high, we just want to go home—”

Startled, Fantaghirò woke.

Around her, the trees stood tall and dark among the not-light of the night. Like watch guards, keeping everything out of sight and out of Fantaghirò’s mind. At least they were welcome guards, not asking her to slow down, not turning their noses at some rumpled cloth, and not putting her down into wells.

At her left, at the tree, the White Knight lay. His cape was cover and blanket for him, and his eyes were closed. Even in the darkness he shone. Fantaghirò smiled at the sight.

Above, the black sky stretched. Stars sprinkled into the endlessness: far off worlds, full of adventures, calling for her.

All was peaceful.

Why did she wake?

Suddenly: “I just want to go home,” a tiny voice came from next to her head. Slowly, without breathing, Fantaghirò turned to look.

There was a chaffinch, a young one, her bright brown tiny beak turned to the trees. She sat awkwardly on the pillow made from the parts of her dress the White Knight had prompted Fantaghiro to cut off. The chaffinch’s feathers were rumpled and she didn’t seem to be able to hold still.

“They won’t let me up again,” the chaffinch said sullenly and turned to look at Fantaghirò. “I can’t believe them! Can you?”

Indeed, the trees had their backs turned. If they were sleeping or truly ignoring the chaffinch, Fantaghirò couldn’t say — but by now she knew that the forest and its inhabitants could be as moody as Carolina when the air was damp and her hair kept curling.

“No,” Fantaghirò said carefully. “I can’t, either.”

The chaffinch nodded. “See! See, you stupid trees!” she cried up, a high-pitched trill in her voice. When they didn’t answer, she huffed and turned, away from them and away from Fantaghirò. In the direction of the White Knight. “I should wake—” she began.

“No,” Fantaghirò whispered.

The chaffinch blinked. “Eh?” she trilled. “But the trees—”

“No, please. He needs his rest.” Fantaghirò looked over to the White Knight, but he hadn’t moved. “He has been training me all day; the least I can do is let him sleep at night. I’ll help you.”

Curiously, the chaffinch looked at her. “I only need to get back to the nest,” she explained. “But hopping to there… no, that will take forever and by the time I get there, the nest will be gone.” She was growing louder again, clearly agitated. “Every time they make war, all from the forest around us begin to flee; all the deer, and mice, and rabbits, and wolves, and they make the tree tremble. And each time the nest falls down. And I’ll be lost when I just wanted to go out a bit, see a bit more of the forest— and my mother said that would happen, she said—” The trills were growing higher, almost painstakingly loud, directly next to Fantaghirò’s ears.

Any louder, and the chaffinch would wake the White Knight.

“Hush,” Fantaghirò quickly whispered. “I’ll take you.” She sat up and held her finger down, for the chaffinch to hop on. “You will be back soon, don’t worry. There won’t be a battle right now, so there is no need to.”

“You don’t know that!” the chaffinch trilled, puffing up her breast. “There might be! They always have battles, big ones. Always the same men, always the same horses, my mother says.”

That, Fantaghirò couldn’t argue with. She sighed. “But you will be back by then.”

“I hope so!”

Fantaghirò threw a glance back at the White Knight. She would only be gone for a minute, there was no need to wake him. As silent as she could, she stole into the forest.

At least the chatting chaffinch distracted her from her sore and burning and arching arms. The White Knight had indeed trained her yesterday, like the day before and the day before that, until Fantaghirò’s arms had almost fallen off.

Unbidden, the image from her dream returned: Her arms, flailing behind her; her sisters…

Fantaghirò shook her head. No more thought of this. She loved training, she loved fighting, she loved the feeling of a sharp sword between her fingers. She would enjoy any day she had out here, hidden away in the forest, where time seemed to stretch until forever. She didn’t want to think about having to go back. Having to face her father… her sisters… the castle…

Here, at least, she had someone who liked her for who she truly was.

“…but my mother said, that I don’t— Are you even listening? Hey!” the chaffinch trilled. “I’m not talking for my own amusement, you know?”

Fantaghirò bit back a smile, but turned her attention to the chaffinch. “I’m sorry”, she said. “Please do continue.”

The chaffinch continued.

-

With Fantaghirò’s steps fading into the forest, the White Knight fully opened his eyes. He truly had thought her to tired for helping the little chaffinch— but apparently, Fantaghirò managed to surprise him yet again.

Swiftly, the White Knight stood and shook the leaves from his cape. His joints creaked. Sleeping was only a pretence, but every now and then, fatigue creeped into this body, this puppet.

A shudder raced through him. In the forest, at this time, everything seemed eternal. He had made it this way, so that he could train Fantaghirò well enough to prepare her for the ordeals she was about to face. But the magic had taken its price: He felt disconnected, with a strange drumming in his ears. When he looked down at his hands, his skin even seemed to wrinkle…

The White Knight folded his hands and spun.

And spun.

And the magic spun…

… unravelling the layers, erasing the masks…

… until the White Witch emerged.

Slowly, she stretched her fingers high up in the air, her dress tight in front of her breasts. It felt so good to be herself; not that she wasn’t a knight, a mouse, a goose at times. But this was the body she had been born with, this was the body she had grown into, with magic twirling along the lines of her spine, along her toes and her fingertips to the tips of her hair. The White Witch breathed in deeply, and the smells of the forest hit her: the sweetness of blue- and strawberries; the richness of the tarns; the trees, and the fields, and the grass, still warm from the sun of the day.

She sent out her magic, let it grow like tendrils and tree roots, until it stretched the whole forest. She smiled.

The forest smiled back at her.

Then the White Witch went to follow Fantaghirò.

-

“It’s such a long way,” the chaffinch sighed wistfully. “I must have flown very far to end up here, I didn’t even realize. I’m quite tired, you know? The way is so long!”

Fantaghirò made a vague sound. “You do know,” she said, “that I’m carrying you?”

The chaffinch looked up at her haughtingly. “My mother always tells me…”

-

If Fantaghirò still had that much energy at night, she should have trained harder during the day, the White Witch thought. But she followed slowly anyway. She hadn’t planned on making Fantaghirò aware of her presence, and still didn’t.

Around her, the forest was quiet and peaceful.

It was home.

-

In the end, Fantaghirò simply asked, to satisfy her growing curiousity: “You did get lost, right?”

The chaffinch broke her chatter and looked at Fantaghirò.

“I mean,” Fantaghirò explained, “I do have to carry you back. Imagine you hadn’t found me. It’s a long way…” Her legs indeed were beginning to cramp. All the training and running and jumping during the day didn’t make a nightly adventure like this any easier.

“Oh, but it’s right over there!” The chaffinch fluttered her feathers, pointing her beak to the right.

Fantaghirò stopped and looked carefully. Hidden between the branches, full with richly green leaves, there was a tiny nest. She smiled at the chaffinch tripping up and down her finger. “Good to be home? Next time you should think before you run off…”

The chaffinch stilled and looked at her. “Of course”, she said simply. “But I love the forest, so I’ll just go back out and forget and then come back home. It’s only the trees that hindered me tonight. But I—”

A trill came from the trees, high and upset.

“Oh,” the chaffinch sighed. “My mother.”

Indeed, before Fantaghirò could even think about an answer, a bigger, clearly older chaffinch shot out of the trees, swift as a bird of prey, and set on a branch next to them. “Young lady!” the older chaffinch trilled. The younger one, still on Fantaghirò’s finger, ducked her head. “I’m not thrilled, I am not. You will get back this instant. In the nest, hush. Hush!”

It was a bird and Fantaghirò had never known her mother, but still, but still… She couldn’t help but hear the words she heard every day at the castle. Get back. Behave. Why do you do that, don’t be so stupid, you are not a knight, you are not a fighter, and if you behave like this, you can’t even be a woman.

It stung.

“She was only talking to me,” Fantaghirò said quickly. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

The chaffinch mother eyed her warily. “And who might you be?”

“A friend—”

“—of the White Knight!” the chaffinch finished for her. “I saw her with him!”

But the words didn’t seem to have the effect the chaffinch had desired them to have. “Just how far did you go out into the forest? Didn’t I tell you not to? Didn’t I tell you how your wings weren’t ready yet?”

“Mother…”

The chaffinch mother sighed. “You only make me worry,” she said. Fantaghirò didn’t know that birds could look so human, so worried, so disappointed, so much like her own father. “You should just wait instead of going off and having to be carried back. One day you will be able to fly even out of the forest, but simply not now.”

Dimly, Fantaghirò heard the words and her eyes began to water. If she had had a mother, would she have…? But Fantaghirò wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t.

“Now,” the chaffinch mother said, her tone stern. “You tell her goodbye, and you tell her thanks, and then you come back to the nest. Your sisters and brothers are still sleeping and even you need rest. The White Witch knows what I’m dealing with here…” Without waiting for an answer from her daughter, she turned and hopped back to the nest. Only the slightly bouncing tree branch showed that she had been there.

A moment of silence followed.

“Well,” the chaffinch said, clearly a bit piqued as she looked down at Fantaghirò’s fingers instead of at her face. “That was my mother. Now you know why I sometimes like to stay in the forest.”

Fantaghirò couldn’t help but smile. She let her eyes wander over the trees around them, over the bushes, and the wild berries, and the leaves, and the grass. She looked up higher: It was still dark, but she knew that in the distance she would be able to see the castle, and that made her think of her father and her sisters.

And it made her think of her mother, and she wondered if anything would have been different with her still alive. If she had understood Fantaghirò better. Maybe a bit like the chaffinch’s mother.

But she wasn’t alive.

She was dead, and her father threw Fantaghirò into wells, and her sisters tried to fix her, without understanding that Fantaghirò couldn’t be fixed: There simply was nothing wrong with her.

And if she was this way and they didn’t accept that…

There was nothing she could do.

“I know what you mean about staying here, in the forest, forever,” Fantaghirò said, slowly. “I know just what you mean…”

-

The White Witch leaned her head back against the tree and closed her eyes. The bark felt warm and alive under her fingers, but the tree slept on. Or maybe it humoured her.

Far in the distance, dawn was beginning to creep up on them.

Only a few feet away, Fantaghirò and the chaffinch said goodbye to each other.

A few miles behind the trees, the king was still awake, his face haunted with worry he couldn’t, wouldn’t admit; and two of his three daughters slept uneasily, never getting the rest they needed.

Miles in the other direction, King Romualdo was waking up, and then he would train, and then he would go get his horse for a ride in the forest, to see his kingdom, Cataldo and Ivaldo at his side.

The White Witch opened her eyes, and breathed, and the forest breathed with her, overflowing with magic, and destiny, and just on the brink of true love.

-

The light stab at her ribs didn’t hurt. It was quite annoying, though. Fantaghirò grumbled and rolled away, but the prodding continued. “Just five more minutes”, she murmured into the pillow. A hard prod. “Caterina! Five more minutes, yes?”

Wearily, Fantaghirò opened her eyes, only to look into a face that wasn’t her sister’s — the White Knight smiled down at her.

“Good morning to you too,” he said, far too cheerfully.

Fantaghirò stared up at him, but when he continued to smile, she knew she would lose. “I know,” she said with a sigh. She sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, pushing her hair back. “A fighter doesn’t get to sleep in…” Something in the White Knight’s hands caught her attention. “But what are we doing with that?”

“This? Oh,” the White Knight answered, raising the quiver, and his eyes caught hers; a spark rested in his black ones, like a star in the night. “Today, I’ll show you how to handle a bow.”

**Author's Note:**

> The story was inspired by a certain scene in the first movie, which struck me during rewatching it for the assignment. When one thinks about it, it is so heartbreakingly sad to hear Fantaghirò talk about how the White Knight was the only one who ever loved her, respected her, and wanted her to be herself. With this story, I wanted to explore this a bit further.
> 
> Dear Kikoujutsuka: I enjoyed writing your assignment, so thank you for that, and I hope you like the story. :)


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